


some catchy tunes, some nonbinary angst

by girl412



Series: assigned ineffable at birth [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Coming Out, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Post-Canon, crowley doesnt know what pronouns she's using and neither do i, sometimes that's just how it is, there isn't actually much angst in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl412/pseuds/girl412
Summary: Warlock texts some more.Crowley debates pronouns.Gender as a concept is universally confusing.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling, Warlock Dowling & Original Female Character(s)
Series: assigned ineffable at birth [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1469717
Comments: 24
Kudos: 260





	some catchy tunes, some nonbinary angst

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! before you read this: there's some more warlock & sally texting, but i didn't have the energy to stay true to the texting format. it's fine hopefully because there isn't MUCH texting, just bits and pieces. as for crowley's pronoun use, well. sometimes that's just how it feels! 
> 
> i had something else to say, but i don't remember what. mostly just that this was difficult to write, but maybe you guessed that. and that i hope it's worth the wait. love y'all <3

At 8:30 in the morning, Warlock’s going through his wardrobe, thinking. He grabs a usual set of black skinny jeans and a Green Day t-shirt. A small part of him is wondering whether it’s enough. Whether he needs to do something more, to be more visible about the whole questioning gender thing. Ultimately, he decides he just wants to be comfortable.

He’d spent at least 2 hours going through transgender support blogs on the internet, and an embarrassing amount of time lurking on nonbinary people’s tumblr blogs, going through their “gender” tags. Some things made sense to him, and other things did not, but he tried not to let it confuse him too much. From what he knew, these things were different for everybody. 

He still wouldn’t consider himself to have a lot clarity on the gender thing, though. He knows that he’s still figuring things out.

His phone pings with a message from Sally. It says, simply, “was listening to Nobody’s Home by Avril Lavigne and thought of you.”

Warlock smiles despite himself. “rude,” he sends back, and then follows it up with, “okay, but im flattered. i love that song.”

-

Crowley wakes up at 7, and spends a solid 15 minutes staring at the ceiling, being so unnaturally still that the lack of movement wakes Aziraphale up.

“What’s wrong, darling?” Aziraphale asks, moving to his side to face Crowley better. “I mean, that is, if there is anything wrong, what is it? May I be of any assistance to you?”

Crowley smiles slightly, so slightly that Aziraphale would miss it if he wasn’t looking for it.

“Nah, it’s just,” Crowley shrugs, and makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a random assortment of consonants cobbled together, “today’s a weird gender day. I don’t know what pronouns I want to use.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale says. “Well, maybe it’ll settle. And if it does not, you don’t have to use any pronouns, you know. We can look at neopronouns, though, if that may be of help. I’ve heard they’re all the rage these days. And you can even make up your own assorted set, if that helps.”

“Neopronouns have been around for a lot longer than the present day, and you know it,” Crowley says, flopping over dramatically. “I don’t know, it’s not aversion per say. It’s more like, I don’t have a specific preference. I feel like anything would work.”

“I’ll make you some tea,” Aziraphale says. “No point debating gender with yourself on a hungry stomach.”

-

“want a song thatll make u cry?” Warlock texts Sally. “try listening to house on a hill. tpr. it’ll break ur heart, probably.”

There’s no response from Sally for a while, enough time that Warlock assumes that she’s listening to the song, and then she responds with, “you MONSTER. this song is so…. quietly sad. why would you send me this?????”

Warlock doesn’t worry too much about it though, because her next text message is “Thank you. it’s pretty sad but I feel like it’ll definitely help me when I’M feeling sad. you know?”

“yes, i know,” Warlock sends back. “theres something comforting abt knowing that ur not the only grieving person in the world.”

-

“He and she both work, I think,” Crowley says, one cup of tea later. “Or, no, actually, she works better, but I don’t want to pass as female, you know? I feel like however I feel today is just pretty. Like my gender? is just pretty. Does that make sense?”

Aziraphale hums. “So, she/her but with the knowledge that you’re absolutely not a woman, or even female-aligned today?”

Crowley nods. “Something like that. That’s the preference, but I genuinely don’t care. Any pronouns. All pronouns. Hit me with them.”

They both sip tea in companionable silence for a bit. Crowley breaks the silence, saying, “I’m sorry if this tires you, you know. Needing to ask pronouns everyday and all that. I get that it’s a lot –” but Aziraphale cuts him off halfway.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, you know.” Aziraphale fixes her with a stern glare, the sort of glare that has Crowley remembering that their best friend was made to be a soldier and a fighter, to guard a gate with a flaming sword. “Accommodating you is _never_ an inconvenience. It’s not a lot, Crowley. You deserve to be addressed and referred to using words that align with how you identify. I don’t mind however many times you need to shift pronouns, or if you want to just be done with them altogether. Just let me know, so that I don’t accidentally misgender you. That’s all.”

Crowley hums, quickly slipping on her sunglasses. Can’t have the angel see her cry too many times.

“I feel privileged that you choose to share this with me, if we’re being honest,” Aziraphale says. He picks up a sugar biscuit and bites into it, while Crowley tries to comprehend this strange new turn of events.

“Privileged how?”

“The way you experience gender is so different from how I experience mine,” Aziraphale says. “That you choose to tell me how you feel and how you experience it… you don’t have to do that. You’re under no obligation to tell me anything, yet you’ve trusted me with this. That’s awfully flattering, my love.”

“Hnhff,” Crowley says, instead of an actual word. They walk over to the suitcase, and pull out their plaid skirt. It’s one of the few things Crowley owns that isn’t entirely black, and he loves it, even if he wouldn’t ever admit it. It’s got a shade of maroon that’s dark enough that it looks like brown in the right light, along with a dark grey, but parts of it are definitely black.

Aziraphale pulls out a hairpin from his pocket – it’s golden, and has little angel wings on it. Carefully, he slips it into Crowley’s hair, keeping a small part of it out of the demon’s face.

“There you go,” Aziraphale says. “Do you feel ready to face the day?”

“Yeah,” Crowley says softly. “I’ll be ready to meet Warlock at 9.”

-

Warlock arrives at the chosen venue 20 minutes early. He texts Sally, “im scared.”

“YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE ME CRY WHEN YOU GIVE ME THOSE OCEAN EYES” comes the response almost immediately.

“Okay sorry that was probably very unhelpful. What’s wrong?” the next message says.

“nothing’s wrong,” Warlock sends back. “im just waiting to meet crowley and im, i don’t know. afraid.”

It’s not a complete truth, but he thinks it’ll do for now.

“Afraid that the magic will end?” Sally’s next text says. “or afraid that something will happen and Crowley won’t come back after?”

“2nd option,” Warlock texts back. “u should b a psychologst.”

“Thank you, I try,” Sally responds, followed by, “listen. I don’t know Crowley personally, but I witnessed that hug in person. that’s not the hug of somebody who’s going to run away from you the moment things get difficult.”

“u think???” Warlock sends.

“Yeah,” Sally responds. “I think it’s obvious Crowley cares about you, but I also understand why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, & it’s absolutely valid.”

“thanks,” Warlock sends. Without thinking about it too much, he also sends, “ily.”

“ily2,” Sally replies, and then the two of them spend the rest of the time sending heart emojis back and forth.

It helps.

-

Crowley tips the taxi driver arbitrarily, unsure whether the amount she’s given is too much or too little, but too busy thinking about other things. Right before entering, she does a quick empathy check. Warlock on the phone had seemed a little doubtful, nervous in a way that automatically activated all of Crowley’s nanny instincts.

What she senses doesn’t do much to help soothe them. Warlock’s anxious in a way that makes her almost afraid, his entire energy one of tension and waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s not all bad, though – she can sense some amount of childlike hope despite everything else, that his nanny _will_ show up and make everything better. That someone loves them that much and has so much faith in them surprises Crowley once again, as if it’s the first time they’re noticing this.

Taking a deep breath to gather their thoughts, Crowley waits for a moment before opening the door and walking right in.

-

Warlock looks up from his phone, and sees Crowley, but it’s Crowley wearing clothes that are almost similar to her Nanny Ashtoreth persona. Crowley spots him right away too, and neither of them care too much about what people around them think, as they quickly embrace, firmly but gently, softly but tightly. Warlock exhales, letting the familiar feeling of being taken care of by this very particular supernatural entity calm him down.

They seat themselves on a sofa, and instead of sitting across each other, Warlock sits next to Crowley, curling up against his caretaker.

They both order croissants and coffee (the ice-cream comes later.)

And then, while they’re waiting for their order to come, Crowley turns to face Warlock, and asks, very gently, “What was it you needed to talk to me about?”

Warlock had prepared this many times in his mind. He’d thought it would be easier to ask Crowley about their own experiences with gender and how they knew that they weren’t cis, when they knew, and other questions like that, if Crowley was alright with those questions being asked, of course. Warlock thought Crowley would be fine with it – Crowley had never made him feel bad for asking too many questions – but he knew it was better to ask anyway, just to give Crowley an option to say no if they needed one.

Warlock had thought, it’d be easier to build up to it. To talk about gender in an abstract way, and then to say, in the context of all that hypothetical talk, that none of it was really hypothetical, that it was possible that he wasn’t cis.

Warlock had not anticipated this. He felt safe and comforted, which he had anticipated, of course. But he felt safe enough that it somehow managed to override his meticulously planned conversation topics, so without really thinking much, he blurted the first thing that came to his mind.

“I think I’m nonbinary,” Warlock says.

“Oh,” Crowley says, very softly. “My darling. I’m so glad you told me, that was very brave. Do you want to talk about it?” 

**Author's Note:**

> people w/ neopronouns are absolutely valid & i might work that in here, depending. i'm mostly projecting my own gender nonsense onto crowley, and right now i don't personally use neopronouns, so im not sure if i can do them justice by writing them at this time (just a disclaimer to let u know that im not intentionally excluding anybody.)
> 
> sorry about ending it Like That.... this installment kinda ran away with me and did its own thing. but im hoping it's a Good Thing that it came out like this. i am certainly satisfied with it kdhkjfjkdg
> 
> happy holidays, everyone - for those of you who have a less than ideal holiday situation to deal with, i believe in you!! it will pass. we made it this far, we will make it through this year & onwards to the next decade. ah, whatever. 
> 
> hmu @ botanicallycrowley on tumblr or gothzabini on twitter if you want!! much love to everyone.


End file.
